Multicolored, irregularly shaped tomatoes bursting with flavor. Sinuously twisted Armenian cucumbers that prompt the question “What’s that?” Glistening peppers of every shape, hue and heat. Row upon row of varieties of lettuce interspersed with kale, chard and other greens.

And waves of nostalgia.

That was the last reaction I expected to experience visiting Suzie’s Farm. The 70-acre organic farm abuts the Tijuana River Estuary state park and the border; it’s the most southwesterly farm in the continental United States. ﻿As I drove away, I was filled with long-dormant memories of the garden my late father hand-dug and tended, coaxing tomatoes, cucumbers, corn and peppers from the unforgiving Virginia red clay.

“That’s a frequent experience,” says Suzie’s Farm general manager Katie Mayfield. “Many people have nostalgia for something they haven’t even experienced. It’s really an interesting thing to have happen.”

I had joined a private tour of Suzie’s Farm organized monthly by Great News! Cookware and Cooking School in Pacific Beach.

Docent Ian Schimmelfennig, a recent UCSD graduate in poetry and environmental literature, waxes eloquent when describing his work leading tours and working in the fields. He is one of six part-time apprentices in a docent program started by co-owners Robin Taylor and Lucila De Alejandro.

“I love being involved in the land and cultural connection. I like to talk about this symphonic approach to farming,” Schimmelfennig explains.

We start our harvesting tour at the KikiTown field, named for a dog, as are all the fields and Suzie’s Farm itself. It’s named after a now-deceased purebred Norwegian elkhound found abandoned near Taylor’s father’s farm, now the location of Sun Grown Organic Distributors.

Schimmelfennig described the farm’s agricultural practices, including use of drip irrigation, tilling and “amending the soil with 1,500 tons of compost every time we turn a field”; that’s every 90 to 120 days, depending on the crop.

As we reach rows of lettuce — oak leaf, red leaf, romaine and other varieties — chard and kale, Schimmelfennig instructs us on the “cut and come again” harvesting technique.

“We’ll take one leaf here, one leaf there,” he says, removing a single leaf from a head of lettuce.

The owners deal with marauding rabbits by planting more crops that also feed hungry bunnies, rather than attempting to exterminate them, anathema at an organic farm. Threats to individual crops are handled by poly-cropping, intermixing rows of different types and varieties of vegetables, as with the varied lettuce-chard-kale plantings in KikiTown, plus planting patches of crops in different fields.

As a last resort, a certified organic farm can use organic pesticides containing concentrated herb oils; however, some crops, such as corn, remain difficult to raise here using organic practices, Taylor explains.

While growing organic crops is the farm’s core mission, educating people about organic farming and building a community around sustainable agriculture are close seconds.

Taylor and De Alejandro started Suzie’s Farm three years ago, beginning on a 1-acre parcel adjacent to the sprout-producing Sun Grown greenhouses, which they gradually took over from Taylor’s father.

The younger Taylor had grown up around agriculture, and the couple met as drama students at SDSU.

“She married me for my farm,” Taylor jokes.

“At first we had a seed catalog and a dream. We wanted to create a community for our daughters and ourselves, knowing our end-users. We wanted to expand our own tastes,” explains De Alejandro.

Now the farm grows more than 100 varieties of vegetables and fruits, focusing on cultivating heritage and uncommon varieties.

“Part of it for us is creating a taste for people, for things they don’t know,” she says.

The owners accomplish this through the farm’s presence at 10 San Diego farmers markets, by supplying produce to many area restaurants, with deliveries of seasonal produce for the Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) program and the farm’s educational tours and special events. Regular blog posts document the farm’s seasonal rhythms and provide tempting recipes.

That 1-acre parcel has turned into a farm employing 80 people. Owners Taylor and De Alejandro are now negotiating the lease of an additional 60 acres to expand plantings and public tours.

“I never expected to become a farmer,” De Alejandro says. “I knew I wanted to feed people. I just didn’t know it would be like this. This is the best manifestation to have a life like this. It’s such a privilege to provide this for others, too.”